C-terminal part of AgRP stimulates insulin secretion through calcium release in pancreatic beta Rin5mf cells

Collection of islets of Langerhans using an equilibrium method

Here we present a convenient method for easy hand selection of enzymatically isolated small tissues such as islets of Langerhans. Islets are continuously collected in a micropipette tip connected to a peristaltic pump. After entering the conical micropipette tip, the islets are quickly dragged up by solution flow, but this movement subsequently decreases as the flow rate decreases. Thus, the islets are trapped at a specific height where downward gravitation balances upward buoyancy and the drag provided by solution flow. Our device allows more efficient isolation of islets compared to conventional manual collection methods.

A computational procedure for functional characterization of potential marker genes from molecular data: Alzheimer's as a case study

BACKGROUND

A molecular characterization of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the key to the identification of altered gene sets that lead to AD progression. We rely on the assumption that candidate marker genes for a given disease belong to specific pathogenic pathways, and we aim at unveiling those pathways stable across tissues, treatments and measurement systems. In this context, we analyzed three heterogeneous datasets, two microarray gene expression sets and one protein abundance set, applying a recently proposed feature selection method based on regularization.

RESULTS

For each dataset we identified a signature that was successively evaluated both from the computational and functional characterization viewpoints, estimating the classification error and retrieving the most relevant biological knowledge from different repositories. Each signature includes genes already known to be related to AD and genes that are likely to be involved in the pathogenesis or in the disease progression. The integrated analysis revealed a meaningful overlap at the functional level.

CONCLUSIONS

The identification of three gene signatures showing a relevant overlap of pathways and ontologies, increases the likelihood of finding potential marker genes for AD.